Aim

"To amend nationality legislation, to create provisions for the support of asylum-seekers in accommodation centres and support arrangements for asylum-seekers generally. Also creates provisions relating to detention and removal; contains provisions on immigration and asylum appeals."

Main provisions

• Repeals the provision of automatic bail hearings created by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.• Grants wider powers to those who authorise and extend bail to enter premises and detain.• Extends the power to detain, which means an asylum seeker can be detained at any time during their application, not just prior to removal.• Grants local authorities the power to enter into contracts with the Home Office in respect of National Asylum Support Service emergency accommodation, induction centres and accommodation centres.• Creates a white list of safe countries. Citizens of these countries who have their asylum applications rejected cannot remain in the UK while they mount an appeal.• Denies asylum seekers support unless they make their claim "as soon as reasonably practicable" after their arrival in the UK – at a port or airport – and they can explain how they reached the UK.• Creates the accommodation centre scheme. Accommodation centres were intended to house asylum seekers for up to six months while their applications were considered.

Background

In June 2000 the bodies of 58 Chinese people were discovered in a refrigerated lorry arriving in Dover. The tragedy occurred at a time when enormous media attention was already focused on the number of asylum seekers trying to smuggle themselves through the Channel tunnel from the Sangatte refugee camp near the Calais entrance to the tunnel. The Home Office drew two lessons from these incidents. First, that the asylum system was being abused by economic migrants seeking to join the UK labour market; and second that closer control of the entry of low-skilled workers would stem the number of people entering illegally.

In February 2002 the white paper Secure Borders, Safe Haven introduced the concept of "managed migration", an idea that went far beyond the scope of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. It linked immigration policy to a recognition that migration provided an important resource for the economy, devising more regulation of economic migration to the United Kingdom. The government sought to discourage asylum seekers from coming to Britain by removing access to support for destitute asylum seekers who did not claim asylum immediately upon arrival.

During an interview with Radio 4's Today programme then-home secretary David Blunkett said the bill was designed to change the message that "if you get here and you claim asylum, then we'll support you". He said that the creation of the white list of safe states was intended to send a "major signal" that the government intended to take a tougher line on unjustified asylum claims.

Criticism

The most controversial aspect of the act was the decision to remove support for destitute asylum seekers, who would now have to prove that they had applied for asylum, were destitute and that the application for asylum had been made "as soon as reasonably practicable" upon arrival in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the home secretary could withhold support from applicants who could not provide an account of how they had arrived in the United Kingdom, how they had been living since their arrival, or to anyone who did not co-operate with the authorities. In 2002 the Refugee Council said that this would "potentially affect the lives and wellbeing of thousands of asylum applicants in the UK forcing them into extreme poverty and making it more difficult to pursue their asylum application". Refugees, the council feared, would have to choose between persecution or destitution.

Further criticism focused on the expansion of the powers to detain asylum seekers, and the abolishing of the automatic right to a bail hearing. The act created a list of "safe countries" where failed asylum seekers could be removed to prior to their appeal. A joint parliamentary committee chaired by the Labour MP Jean Corston described this as an "unacceptable" threat to human rights.

The joint committee strongly criticised the enactment of a provision that withdrew refugee protection from people convicted of serious criminal offences as contrary to the UK's obligations under the refugee convention, as it allowed deportation even for crimes that were not "particularly serious".